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Roger Morriss. Science, Utility and Maritime Power: Samuel Bentham in Russia, 1779-1791

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Roger Morriss. Science, Utility and Maritime Power: Samuel Bentham in Russia, 1779-1791 Strife Journal, Issue 5 (May/ June 2015) Roger Morriss. Science, Utility and Maritime Power: Samuel Bentham in Russia, 1779-1791. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2015. ISBN 978-14-72-41267-6. Pp. xvi, 274, 2 maps. Hardback; e-book. £70.00. Samuel Bentham (1757-1831) naval innovator, because he had no practical achievements to his traveller and engineer was the younger, more credit. Throughout his time in Russia Bentham practically minded, brother of utilitarian provided his patrons with extensive reports, philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The brothers maps, mineral and timber samples, and even shared many interests in social reform, and Russian state documents. While Morriss never improved efficiency. Where Jeremy imagined a addresses the issue it would not be stretching more rational society, Samuel improved the the point to argue that he was a spy. organisation, management and infrastructure of dockyards – initially in Russia - and then Russia was at once a potential ally against between 1796 and 1812 in Britain. Highlights France, and growing strategic concern for of his work in Britain included Marc Isambard Britain. Furthermore it dominated the vital Brunel’s block making machinery, the first market in naval stores; the timber, masts, hemp, military hardware ever made using mass sailcloth and tar that sustained British production techniques based on shipbuilding for war and commerce. Not only interchangeable parts, the use of steam power did Bentham report on Russian markets and for dredging, and the managerial principle of naval developments, but made his way east individual responsibility. Long neglected by through Holland, where he spent weeks naval historians his career has been a major researching Dutch naval and commercial theme of Dr Morriss’s work on dockyard shipbuilding. The scientific nature of his management and administration across the past journey, and he would be engaged with thirty years. This book examines the impact of scientists at all his destinations, was an ideal a decade spent in Russia on Bentham’s thinking. cover for a national agenda. Alongside these agendas Bentham was also anxious to establish Unlike his fellow naval architects Samuel himself in business, using his London Bentham was very well connected. His wealthy connections with government and trade to set father moved in the reformist Whig political up as a supplier of strategic naval resources. circles of the Lord Shelburne, lived close by These three agendas dominated his twelve year Parliament, and sent his sons to the elite residence in Imperial Russia. Bentham used his Westminster School. Samuel chose to train as a connections to ingratiate himself with a shipbuilder, and made his journey to Russia Russian political and scientific elite anxious to with the financial help of his father. This recruit Western expertise, and well-disposed journey was part of a significant movement of towards Britain, as the single most important skilled Britons to the Russia of Catherine II, an export customer. Bentham used his enlightened autocrat who attracted the interest connections to acquire Russian state papers, and sympathy of many reform-minded and worked closely with the British philosophers. Samuel travelled to Russia armed Ambassador, who sent reports addressed to with a battery of letters of recommendation Bentham’s father back to London. Tsaritsa from British statesmen, scientists and Catherine and her favourite, Prince Potemkin, philosophers. Bentham’s journey to Russia patronised the young Englishman, and under received extensive support from naval, scientific their auspices he made a series of astonishing and commercial interests. Among those who journeys across the expanding Russian Empire, supported his mission were leading naval from St Petersburg to Archangel in the north, officers including Admiral Lord Howe, who across Siberia to the Lena River and the expressed particular interest in the Russian Chinese Border in the east, recently acquired Navy, and identified specific ships that he Polish lands in the west, and the newly-acquired wished to learn about. These contacts mattered Crimea in the south. He was in all probability 55 Strife Journal, Issue 5 (May/ June 2015) the first Englishman to see the emerging naval course in Asia and the Near East, Russian base at Sevastopol. He quickly learnt Russian, attempts to monopolise trade by occupation to add to his French and German language and conquest imperilled British projects to skills, and discussed the language with his extend their profitable Asian and Turkish trades brother Jeremy, who came out to visit and seek by improving relations with local regimes. As an opening for his reformist agenda with the Catherine and Potemkin planned a major Empress. military campaign to drive down the Amur River, conquering Chinese provinces as they Under the cover of his own commercial went, opening a port and trading with Japan, interests, and those of his patrons, Bentham the British Government dispatched Earl began to uncover Russian commercial and geo- MaCartney’s mission to seek improved trade strategic agendas, critically the desire to with the Chinese Empire. Both powers were monopolise the trade between Asia and seeking to exploit the commercial opportunities Europe, through Persia and China, and to of the North Pacific, highlighted by Captain dominate the Black Sea. A report sent home in James Cook’s third voyage. Catherine read the 1784 included detailed maps of the expanding Cook narratives, and employed officers and Russian Empire, and the observation that with men form that expedition to develop Russian naval bases, extensive shipbuilding resources Pacific trade. This would involve Russian and cheap labour in the Baltic, White and Black conquest for, as the British Ambassador at St. seas Russia could ‘pour forth fleets form the Petersburg observed, they ‘had no notion of south and from and north to encircle Europe, drawing advantage from another country by and lay in her claim for a share of the empire any means but conquest.’ (p. 221) Although the of the oceans. In point of commerce what now Russian Conquest of the Amur Basin lay fifty may be expected?’(p. 128) Bentham sent this years in the future, the conquest of Ochakov in report home through Istanbul, to avoid the 1790 made Russia the dominant Black Sea inquisitive and suspicious Russian authorities. power, and threatened the survival of the In return for his reports Bentham pressed his Ottoman Empire, a major British trading contacts to help find skilled artisans to develop partner. This event made a powerful impression Russian resources for his own projects. in London, among men who had read Bentham’s reports. In the event Bentham did While Morriss is fascinated by Bentham’s work not return to Russia from a planned short visit on river craft and small warships used in littoral to London in 1791, the year when Pitt the operations leading to the capture of Ochakov, Younger’s government mobilised the fleet and which earned him a gold sword, a major demanded Russia withdraw from Ochakov. decoration and Russian estates, the book Domestic political opposition obliged Pitt to overlooks the larger patterns that shaped back down, but not before Admiral Lord Anglo-Russian relations. As an aside Bentham Hood, appointed to command the projected met the American naval officer John Paul Jones Baltic fleet, sought out Bentham to return his during the Ochakov campaign, reckoning him papers and, one suspects, discuss the state of to be decent enough ship’s master, but no he Russian Navy. Shortly after the crisis passed officer. The Russians disliked Jones because he Potemkin died, ending Bentham’s privileged was common, and above all because he was entrée into Russian affairs. mean, he did not keep a hospitable and full table for his officers; such stinginess was simply The book begins with a discussion of unacceptable in the Russian service. Benthamite thinking, and then follows the Russian phase of his career through the In 1788 Bentham secured a posting to Siberia, correspondence. Morriss sees Bentham’s time where he began work on a personal and in Russia as an important preparation for his national agenda to open the river trade into career in the Royal Dockyards, which he has China, but the golden age of Anglo-Russian addressed in two important books.1 Yet the partnership, which provided the context for his residence, was rapidly coming to an end. By 1 Roger Morriss, Royal Dockyards During the Revolutionary 1790 Britain and Russia were set on a collision and Napoleonic Wars (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1983) and Idem., The Foundations of British Maritime 56 Strife Journal, Issue 5 (May/ June 2015) Russian material can be read in a very different Anglo-Russian naval, commercial and technical way, and demands further work. Bentham’s relations in the age of Catherine the Great, one reports were the most significant sources of that will repay readers who are ready to push information on Russian ambition and power at the evidence in different directions. a time when economic and political relations between the two powers were changing rapidly. His correspondence with Lord Howe and Lord Andrew Lambert Hood, the leading men in the Navy, reflected an King’s College London anxiety about an emerging rival, one that controlled the naval stores essential to sustaining seapower. It is unlikely the Russians were under any illusions about Bentham. They __________________________ exploited his scientific and practical skills to transfer the latest technology and, as he was very well aware, closely monitored his covert activities. The focus on Bentham may obscure the wider significance of the book. Students of Anglo- Russian relations and Russian naval history will find a wealth of evidence to prompt further research. People and places pass without further comment; for example the British born Neapolitan Naval Minister Lord Acton appears on page 40, without being identified, or connected with naval service.
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